HEAVY Platters. Metal or Plastic? Your personal Experiences

@ghdprentice I do not think you would do well with the Walker. Probably get tangled in the hoses. It proves there are humans that will by anything.

@twoleftears  There sure is a reason. It looks nice. I wonder if they will fall out if you turn it over?

@mglik  I think you'd better stick to the mats.

@wturkey , Yes, the platter has to have a reasonable gyroscopic effect to smooth out speed imperfections. Even DD tables are using heavier platters now. However there is such a thing as too heavy for standard bearing arrangements because the heavier the platter the faster is bearing wear. Exceptions are tables with magnetic thrust bearings and air bearing thrust mechanisms. Very heavy platters create other problems. Because they are harder to accelerate and stop belt wear is faster. If they are not perfectly balanced and leveled they will wear out the bearing sleeve. Only the Kuzma air bearing table would be immune to this and indeed Frank almost doubles the mass of the platter. He still does not have vacuum clamping. He is obviously convinced that reflex clamping is good enough.

At any rate. I personally think anything over 20 lb is a waste. There are many turntables with lighter platters that have SOTA speed specs. The Sota turntable is special because it corrects speed deviations slowly so you do not hear it happening and the speed will remain stable to 0.003 rpm. Sota is so brazen that the Condor displays speed in real time down to 0.001 rpm. At this moment it is reading 33.335 rpm. The platter weights 20 lb I think. 

@lohanimal  It sound like we are fully in agreement on this one.

@pindac I am an itinerate DIYer but wouldn't you rather buy a turntable with a decent bearing to start with?

@ghdprentice , very true but there is a point of severely diminishing returns. There is no turntable over $60,000 that I would ever go for even if I had unlimited funds. The market for tables I would go for is limited to two, the Basis Inspiration and the Dohmann Helix. Obviously that is a personal thing but you do have similar taste. I know the Linn very well. I owned two of them, long story. If you ever get the itch you really should look at the Sota Cosmos. 

@ghdprentice, If I were a betting man I would say after using a table with vacuum clamping, insane speed stability and a very stable suspension,  the Linn will be on the chopping block.